"You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”
-Marian Wright Edelman

Monday, October 29, 2007

Update in an Indian Adoption Scandal -- Kidnap and Adoption

In 2005 another horrid adoption scandal broke in India. In May 2005, the Central Crime Branch of the Chennai police arrested several people for allegedly kidnapping and selling about 350 children to the Malaysian Social Service agency. Also arrested were the director of Malaysian Social Service, P.V. Ravindranath, his wife Vatsala and their son, Dinesh Kumar who were booked under the criminal penal code provision for kidnapping.

Malaysian Social Service placed children for adoption between 1991 and 2001 or 2002. Several of these children had been sent for adoption abroad. Police investigations showed that records relating to children at the agency, specifically the surrender affidavits, bore signatures of false witnesses. Several affidavits didn’t even have signatures. Malaysian Social Service Agency previously lost its license in 1998 after some children who had been reported missing were identified as those that they agency had made adoptable. The agency’s license was restored a few months later and revoked again after the scandal in 2001.

After the news broke, the police were besieged by scores of parents looking for their stolen and missing children. The details about how the children were allegedly abducted over a decade varied. M. Habib said that in March 1998 his wife came to Chennai with their 3 year old son, Amaruddin. While his wife was trying to see the number on the bus, her son was kidnapped. Another woman, Sivakami, said that in 1997 her 1 year old son, Subash was playing outside their house in Pulianthope when he disappeared.

Only a few parents were able to recognize their children from photos seized from the orphanage. Not only had they been given new names by Malaysian Social Service, but reports indicate that the agency did not take pictures of the children when they took them in.

An in-depth report by Frontline in May 2005 of this and other scandals in Chennai traces the root of the problem, of course, to money:

“Foreign adoptive parents pay their local agencies, which send the sums as‘grant-in-aid’ to their Indian counterparts. It is difficult to find out howmuch each parent in the foreign country has paid – but, according to someestimates, it ranges from $10,000 to $50,000. There is, however, a clear linkbetween inter-country adoptions and foreign contributions. In fact, manyagencies admit they cannot survive without doing intercountry adoptions.”

Following the arrests, a few parents filed court actions demanding the return of their children. One petitioner said his son Satishkumar was taken in March 1999, another said his four year old son was abducted by a gang in an autorickshaw, and a third said that his 1 year old child had been missing since February 1999.

Last month, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court ordered an immediate investigation by the Anti-Corruption Branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation into all three cases. A special team has been formed to probe these cases. According to one senior CBI official, “We have already collected the case details regarding the adoption racket case. There are a minimum five to six cases that we will be investigating with regard to the illegal adoption of children. The case details show that the children are sold to various parts of the world.”

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Contributing Fleas

Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.

Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.

For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.

Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.

Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.

It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.

Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.

Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.

Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.

We have been left to ask the questions:

1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?

2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?

This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.

Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.

If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.

Usha: When I adopted from India not that many years ago, I was ignorant about the adoption landscape.

I believed the adoption myth that adoption agencies are basically trustworthy and that with all the hoops adopters must jump through, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that adoptions are ethical.

After adopting, I began participating in the adoption community.

My eyes were opened by the racist attitudes and beliefs I observed in fellow adopters from India. I couldn't believe the dim view I saw many take of my children's country of birth, my own country of origin.

Where were the checks to ensure that children were adopted into non-racist families? Later, my eyes opened wider when I learned about scndal after scandal with the recurrent themes of: getting children "out," agencies willing to look the other way, laws that are good on paper, but that are not enforced and individuals advocating for reform simplistically painted as evil and "anti-adoption."

First, I thought adoption corruption was primarily specific to India. It didn't take long, however, to become aware of how pervasive adoption corruption is.

With that knowledge came a sense of obligation that as a participant in the system: no matter how unwitting, I owe it to my children to advocate for reform

“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”

--Thucydides, Ancient Greek historians and author, 460-404bc

“The more I learn, the more race, culture, and class stand out as the key issues behind ethical problems in adoption, domestically and internationally—the same issues are at play in both"”

--Tesi Kohlenberg, Adoptive Parent

Adult Adoptee Voices

"We are not commodities. We are children that were torn away from our countries, our parents, and our culture. We are not the newest fad. We are women and men who forever have a hole that cannot be filled. We have voices, and we use them to express our outrage, our bitterness, our anger, and also our joy,our love,and our lives. To learn from us is to listen to what is, sometimes,underneath."

"Sending" Country Parent and Community Voices

"We are not animals to be bought and sold,"

--Ana Escobar, a Guatemalan mother whose baby was stolen from her and who suspected her child was funneled into the International Adoption system. Ana diligently searched for her child through pending adoption paperwork until she found her--with a false identity and fake DNA tests--waiting to be processed for adoption by a US family. After a new DNA test confirmed Ana was her child's mother, the two were reunited.